


Robin Hood

by Flanker27_UK



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26027380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flanker27_UK/pseuds/Flanker27_UK
Summary: I've joined a Creative Writing group to help me develop my skills.One exercise is what we call 'Quick Fic' you have 20 mins to write, inc thinking, edit and checkingOK so this weeks exercise was "Write your favourite fairy tale, but set in 2020I came up with this & thought I'd post it & see what people think?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Robin Hood

This time it had worked.

They had learned the lessons of the previous attempt in 2008, the worms were much better coded, resilient and able to dynamically alter their checksums and signatures. Now able to burrow through all the firewalls, reaching their targets and sitting, waiting, counting down to the target date.

The test in Nottingham had gone better than anyone could have expected, everything working as designed, all targets being hit as anticipated. Then self-destructing, hiding behind the vile ransomware that East European gangs were using, who little realised that they were compromised as well, a rich source to mine when R day came.

COVID-19 was an ideal catalyst, awful as the disease was it was the ideal opportunity to strike, people furloughed, Admins and Sysprogs working from home, not hands-on, not able to hit the EPO’s, which was the only way to stop it when it started.

The girl looked around at the band she had assembled, all truthful, honest and disgusted at what society had become. Their technical knowledge leveraged. Her ex-husband the unwitting carrier of the first spores of the infection, silently hidden in the laptop he had gleefully taken as a part of the divorce settlement.

They had agreed on midnight on April 1st as being an appropriate date, the slight suspicions of All Fools day jokes adding to the initial confusion.

A simple change sneaked into the internet time servers was the trigger, sitting there for years biding its time

As all the computer clocks synchronised, a nanosecond into April an encryption key changed, instantly making all the backups supposedly safely stored in deep caverns useless, without that key nothing could be recovered.

Concurrently the worms did their work, emptying all the accounts of the investment banks and hedge funds, the lifeblood of the cruel side of capitalism. At the same time payday loans records were erased, no backup, no way of tracking loans. The same for small mortgages and loans. People on benefits, workers on salary slave wages, pensioners who could hardly make ends meet found all records of their loans gone, and several thousand pounds appearing in their current accounts.

The news headlines were screaming about financial Armageddon. The little people couldn’t believe it, in a stroke equality had been enforced.

The girl turned to the big bear of a man who had been her rock throughout this whole project, smiled and took his hand

“Let’s go home Cormoran”

“Let’s, don’t forget to put your Hood up, don’t want your hair spotted on security cameras”


End file.
